The opera superstar will conduct the children at a fundraiser for their after-school music program, called Harmony

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Opera superstar Placido Domingo is getting ready to conduct 35 New York City schoolchildren. They're studying music five days a week under a program inspired by Venezuela's acclaimed youth orchestra system.

Domingo will conduct the fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders at a fundraiser Wednesday for their after-school music program, called Harmony.

They kids are from Public School 129 in Harlem and Public School 152 in Flatbush, Brooklyn.

Program founder Anne Fitzgibbon says she learned how the program called El Sistema transforms students' lives during a Fulbright fellowship to Venezuela.

The New York City students who are enrolled in Fitzgibbon's Harmony program spend two hours a day learning their instrument or performing with the orchestra.